Thu, September 27, 2012 7:00 pm at Alwan for the Arts

Inspired by an article in the French press, Algerian-born writer/director Amor Hakkar (who also plays Mohsen) explores the relationship of two men as it develops amid the social tremors of mobility, migration, and alienation. Hassan and Mohsen make it all the way to France. While stopped over in a small town to await their train to Paris, Mohsen befriends the lonely, but warm, Yolande, who offers him employment, kindness, and the possibility of a peaceful life. Amor Hakkar directs and stars as the aging man torn between a security he has never known and his passionate connection to his younger lover. A minimalist film that nevertheless feels visually and emotionally full, without forced sentimentality or manufactured drama, A Few Days of Respite questions the nature of love and happiness and the sacrifices we may make to achieve either. In this film directed and written with precision and economy, Hakkar allows us to know these characters in a single line of dialogue, and feel their conflict within the power of a glance.

"A Few Days of Respite" (Amor Hakkar, Algeria, 2010, 80 min)

Tickets: $5 General | Free for Alwan members) Available at the door. Doors open 6:30

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About the Filmmaker

Amor Hakkar was born in Algeria in 1958. At the age of 6 months he immigrated to France with his parents to live there. Fond of cinema and writing, he made his first movies (short and long features) in his adoptive country. When his father died en 1998, the filmmaker went back to Algeria to bury him and discovered the Aures area where he shot a documentary in 2002, and then in 2006 the fiction “The yellow house” in Berber.

About our Co-Presenters

CINEMAROSA is a monthly, independent, film program created in 2004 by artist, Hector Canonge. CINEMAROSA’s mission is to promote, and present Queer independent films and videos by local, national, and international filmmakers. The monthly program encourages discussion forums among guests and participant filmmakers in order to create a cultural cinematic hub around LGBT issues and concerns. CINEMAROSA has been recognized as the leading independent LGBT film program in NYC featuring works that best reflect the diverse experiences and lives of LGBT peoples around the world. CINEMAROSA co-produces events such as Queerin’ Queens, Rosalicious, and Gayleria, and most recently launched the project E V A (School for Alternative Filmmaking) in Corona, Queens, and the monthly literary reading inQbator at Word Up: Community Bookstore in Washington Heights, Manhattan.

In 2010, CINEMAROSA received a Proclamation by the City of New York, through the office of Jackson Heights Councilman Daniel Dromm. After seven years of consecutive screenings, Canonge explains that “CINEMAROSA is as strong as ever because there is a need to provide this type of service for the Queer community of Queens and NYC at large.” The monthly free screening program has featured local, national and international filmmakers whose works best reflect the diversity of lives in experiences in the LGBT community. Canonge adds that “through CINEMAROSA and its hosting institution, the Queens Museum, it has been possible to create a safe LGBT cultural hub in Queens where audiences, artists, filmmakers, and representatives from other LGBT organizations come together and share their visions, views and ideas.”

3rd I New York’s monthly film/video/media salon is designed by local filmmakers and cultural producers to showcase the works of independent media makers of South Asian, Central Asian, and Arab descent. Providing alternative forums for these filmmakers who often have few venues to showcase their work and whose cultures and histories are often demonized or misrepresented in mainstream media, not only increases their visibility, but also provides a social forum for peers and audiences to participate in an ongoing discussion.

3rdi NY Film Programming is made possible in part with public funds from the Fund for Creative Communities, supported by New York State Council on the Arts, and the Manhattan Community Arts Fund, supported by the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs, both in partnership with the Lower Manhattan Cultural Council. Alwan for the Arts hosts our monthly screenings series. We are thankful to the SINGH Foundation for acting as our fiscal sponsor.